North Korea says could resume nuclear talks if US ends host

GENEVA- North Korea said on Wednesday that it would not give up its nuclear deterrent until the United States ends its "hostile policy" towards Pyongyang, but that it was ready to revive international talks on its nuclear program frozen since 2008.

The United States and its allies believe North Korea violated a 2005 aid-for-denuclearisation deal by conducting a nuclear test the following year and pursuing uranium enrichment that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based atomic program.

So Se Pyong, the North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, warned that a joint US-South Korean military exercise planned for August would raise tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula.

He also reiterated his country's call for dismantling the US-led UN Command in South Korea, which dates from the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean war without a peace treaty. The 60th anniversary of the armistice falls on July 27.